July 25, 2012 — Can an apartment be your primary residence, even if you haven’t lived there for two years? That’s the question Patricia Ingao, a board vice president at a Brooklyn co-op, is asking in this episode. Her board is grappling with a complicated and touchy situation involving an elderly rent-stabilized tenant in a nursing home, the son who’s been paying her rent, and the the tax break the co-op has been receiving in exchange for keeping her rent low.

Unfortunately, according to our attorney panel, case law on these matters is anything but clear cut. The panel covers the intersecting questions of how the co-op’s property taxes may be affected, how to determine whether the tenant will ever really return to the apartment, whether the tenant’s rights may be passed along to her son, and how to balance the desire to be a good neighbor with the co-op’s financial realities. On the panel this week: Phyllis Weisberg of Montgomery McCracken Kurzman Karelsen and Kenneth Jacobs of Smith, Buss & Jacobs. Music for this episode by Jahzaar, from freemusicarchive.org.